Ministerial list: APC chairman calls for calm

Abia State chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Hon. Donatus Nwankpa has called for calm among party supporters in the state as the country awaits the second batch of the ministerial nominee list.

Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki had in a letter which he read at the floor of the House during Tuesday Plenary of the Red Chamber mentioned the 21 names out of 36 would be ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as was submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari with names of Abia, Imo and Enugu State nominees missing from the list.

A source within the party in the state disclosed to The Nation that the inability of President Buhari to mention any Abia nominee for ministerial appointment could not be unconnected with the clash of interest within the ranks of APC members in the state over who should be presented for appointment by the President.

The source who expressed fears that the situation could further delay the remaining names from being submitted to the senate for consideration urged all the warring factions to sheath their swords and allow the leadership of the state to unanimously present a candidate for appointment, adding that there were a lot of appointments yet to be made where others who could not make the ministerial list could be accommodated.

When contacted, Nwankpa in a telephone interview debunked that the party was having internal wrangling.

According to him, “APC doesn’t have problems. What happened is that we said that you cannot have headache and another person will be drinking medicine for you. People cannot labour and work for this party for Mr. President to emerge and somebody, somewhere will call himself a technocrat and will now come to say that He is a member of APC in Abia State because the constitution says that before you can be a minister, you must belong to a political party and that every state is entitled to a minister”. Unless we are forming a government of national unity, then you can choose candidates from the ruling party and the opposition party to become minister on behalf of the APC in Abia”.

Nwankpa who recalled the humiliation they (members of APC) suffered among their kinsmen and members of the ruling party while campaigning for Mr. President before the elections said “I am not angling for that. We should know that there were people who took the risk and their names were submitted among those who should be considered as ministers. We were almost stoned like Stephen, we were bombarded, blackmailed and so many things were meted out against us in the process of campaigning for APC candidates in the state and Mr. President who we sincerely believed his message of change during the campaign period.

“The people who are now jostling for Abia slot didn’t even allow us to eat in the same restaurant where they were eating or allow us to drink from the same cup with them. We were treated like lepers among our kinsmen because of APC. So, how can they come from behind to start saying that they want to reap from where they didn’t sow anything? It is an aberration and travesty of justice and very discouraging; it weakens the morale of people for tomorrow. We are only saying that we will resist any ‘mystrimer’; those who worked against us during the election will come to be a minister when the people who actually worked for Mr. President have not gotten anything”.

Continuing, the chairman of the party who was optimistic that President Buhari would not allow anyone to misguide him from doing what is right, added “We trust the judgment of Mr. President because even when people by the side wanted to deceive him, he refused. Mr. President has been a head-of-state, a minister and among various positions that he has served in the past. One thing I admire about Mr. President is that he has a good sense of judgment and we know that nobody will mislead him, especially among the southeast where he knows people’s resentment towards some of us who took the initial risk of not only being in APC, but believing in the change which the President was and is still preaching about.

“Within human limitations, I believe that Mr. President will not go wrong because I know that the President will not make us (APC) a laughing stock in the southeast. After all, he has taken the judgment in Ebonyi and Anambra state. So, Abia, Imo and Enugu cannot be exceptions. God will guide the President in his decision. And that God that guided the President’s decision in Anambra, Ebonyi, will also guide him to take such decision in Imo, Enugu and Abia.

“Mr. President is not an accidental member of the party. He is a foundation member of the APC, CPC and ANPP, abinitio. There is one thing about Mr. President, he is a very careful person and he knows all those who worked for him and those who contested election in Abia and in the southeast; those he knew as the face of APC in various states of the southeast. He knows them right from the merging process”, Nwankpa opined